Girandoni style air rifles and pistols - preliminary
research presentation.

. By Robert D. Beeman Ph.D.[1]
Established 23 March 1999.
Updated 17 July 2007

For the VERY latest
information concerning amazing new discoveries about the
Lewis and Clark airgun,
please click on: the
Lewis Assault Rifle section AND see the latest notes in the
What's New section of this
website.

URGENT REQUEST: We
are very anxious to obtain, or learn of a possible source for, a
portrait of
Bartholomäus Girandoni (1744-1799) and/or his son Johann. Please
relay any clues to
DrAirgun@Beemans.net.

Large bore antique airguns (Windbüchsen) have always been a specialty of the
Beeman Airgun Collection. In the last three decades, Mrs. Beeman
and I have been fortunate to acquire one of the largest
collections of Austrian large bore airguns and information about
them. This is a preliminary presentation about some
specimens from that, starting with the best known of these arms: the
famous Girandoni system airguns first developed slightly before the
19th century. The eventual demise of these military airguns by
about 1810 had little to do with their effectiveness, but was
more involved with the logistics of keeping them charged in
combat, the inability of contemporary gunsmiths to maintain the
guns, and with the political implications of such weapons which
mistakenly were believed to be "silent". That the design was
widely copied later in civilian circles indicates that it was
well accepted by discriminating civilian gunsmiths and shooters
and that such guns really were effective hunting arms.
The system really was more suited to hunters who do not fire so
many shots as a soldier, who can have the air reservoirs pumped
up at leisure - even by a servant, and whose lives generally do
not depend on the gun. Virtually all of the 19th century copies of the Girandoni system airguns proudly bear the
name of the maker and the city of his shop. Truly outstanding
copies, sometimes richly ornamented with gold and silver
coatings and inlays, deeply engraved, and bearing superb, ornate
stocks bear the names of such makers as Contriner, Lowentz,
Fisher,
etc.. Lowentz and Schembor of Vienna and Staudenmayer,
Fisher, and Mortimer of London who produced a very few high
quality Girandoni system repeaters and even single shot air
rifles and shotguns with the characteristic Girandoni styling.
There are other makers of lesser rank and quality. Copies made after 1900 generally are
unsigned and some are crude, even clumsy. As noted by Ernest
Cowan, the Girandoni system
is not easy to reproduce in high quality.

After some detailed
coverage of the Girandoni military repeating air rifle, we will
consider the Girandoni repeating air pistol, several Girandoni
system airguns and Girandoni style airguns in the Beeman Airgun Collection and some of the
myths about the Girandoni system guns.

They following
material is only a preliminary posting of our current study. The most
intense research is now concentrated on the Girandoni repeating
air rifles, especially on the recent work and study of Colin
Currie, Geoffrey Baker, Ernest Cowan, Richard Keller,
and Robert Beeman. The next phase will concentrate on the
Girandoni system airguns and Girandoni style air guns. One of
the major research objectives is to greatly increase the
knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of these special
airguns. We constantly are seeking additional specimens,
references, and information so that we may present the best source of
information on this group. A few examples of Girandoni and
Girandoni-system airguns from our collection are shown in this
article. Material on other such specimens in the Beeman Airgun
Collection will be added as we have time for their study,
photography, and addition to our website.
We VERY MUCH welcome information on
other Girandoni system airguns and are always on the market to
buy additional specimens for inclusion in our upcoming book
which finally will tie the existing specimens together into a
permanent legacy for this gun-making genius - a collection which
is destined to be maintained as a unit in an appropriate
international arms museum - rather than being sold and thus
scattered into obscurity over the globe.

What is our background in this area of study? Mrs. Beeman and I have been intensely interested in antique large bore
airguns, especially the Girandoni system rifles and pistols, for over three
decades. This began long before our interest in collecting and studying airguns
of the 20th century. During that time we have studied such airguns with the late
Henry Stewart (who started us on the trail to the Lewis airgun) in his
astonishing gunroom, and in person in the collections at the Tower of
London, Beeman Airgun Collection, Virginia Military Institute, Smithsonian
Institute, U.S. National Firearms Museum, U.S. Army War College, Fort Clatsop Museum, German National
Museum, Military Museum of Turkey, Kopenhagen Tøjhusmuseum (Royal Danish Arsenal
Museum), Milwaukee Public Museum, Zurich Landmuseum, Bern Historical Museum,
Solthurn Zueghaus, Deutsch Jagdmuseum - Munich, Jagdmuseum Kranichstein -
Darmstadt, Waffensammmlung des Kunsthistorischen Museum and
Heeresgeschichtliches Museum – Wien, Staatliches Museum – Schwerin, Victoria and
Albert Museum – London, and several other important gun collections throughout
the world.. The Jagdmuseum Kranichstein in Darmstadt, Germany and the
Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna, Austria were especially valuable in our
quest for information on this design. In most cases, Mrs. Beeman and I were allowed to
work in the private research facilities of the museums, in discussion with and
active participation of the arms curators, studying, photographing, and even
disassembling these incredible arms. In addition, we have studied airguns at
innumerable gun and airgun shows in
America and overseas and we carry on a long and vigorous exchange of information
with other museums and leading collectors all over the world. We are enormously
fortunate to have been able to develop the Beeman Airgun
Collection. A great deal of
study has been done in that collection, which includes several models of the
Girandoni design. Antique large bore airguns are the main
emphasis of the Collection, apparently the world’s largest such collection.

In addition to developing a reference library on these guns, I have had the
wonderful opportunity to study original references in person at many museums and
at the U.S. Library of Congress. Only a minor amount of the basic literature
about the Girandoni-system airguns is available in English- and some of that is
represented by very weak material in secondary sources, such as W.H.B. Smith,
Eldon Wolff, and especially such popular general audience works as Nonte and
Wesley, I have concentrated mainly on the key works, which are in German.
I have also studied some of the less important papers which are in Italian and
even French. It is only too clear that many of the so-called references are
simply wrong, have incorrect dates, and have repeated popular myths about these
guns. (For instance, virtually everyone had been repeating centuries-old misinformation about caliber,
magazine capacity, and air bypass mechanisms.) Some of Fred Baer’s writings
(1955 1973),of which the 1973 work was
wonderful and often original, continued to repeat incorrect information. (As
does some of the material in Joe Mussulman’s truly outstanding Lewis and Clark website – he is committed
to correcting those few points soon.). Even some of the great recent work by
Geoffrey Baker and Colin Currie needed additional information and fine tuning, due to photographic distortion, lack of access
to certain parts of the museum specimens, and mistakes in the
literature on which they had depended. More than anyone, these
authors were aware of this and worked furiously to make a
heavily revised second edition of their book highly accurate for
the sake of those who would like to know more about these
amazing guns or even to recreate one. (Rifles and pumps produced
from information in the first edition simply are not authentic.)
We supplied very
detailed information on the Beeman
Girandoni, but most importantly, loaned that gun to master gunmaker Ernie Cowan
of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Over a two year period, Ernie
made an astonishingly detailed, exhaustive and meticulous study
of that gun - certainly the most through study ever made of its
structure. Much of this section is based on that analysis and
cooperative study with Colin Currie and Geoffrey Baker in
England. Colin Currie, working with Geoffrey Baker, on
their detailed structural
guide to the Girandoni airgun, flew to the USA in December 2005 to examine
museum quality reproductions and castings of this gun and to confer with master
gunmaker Ernie Cowan and gun historian Rick Keller about them. All of us
met together in Pennsylvania in September 2006 to discuss details.
Surely this will result in the most through and
accurate information pool ever available on this incredible gun design.

The Girandoni Repeating Air Rifle

Presented here is information which finally develops a fairly
clear picture of the features and history of the Girandoni
military repeating air rifle. This information has become
especially interesting and relevant because so much of it is
new. The operation and special features of this gun, even its
shortcomings, may be even more important to us than its fabled
firepower.

After inventing an ingenious, but unreliable and unsafe,
multiple feed system for powder burning firearms in the very
late 1700s, Bartholomäus
Girandoni (also spelled Girandony, Girardoni, etc.) of Vienna
(originally from Ampesso in the Southern Tyrolean Alps)
very successfully adapted the system to large bore airguns. Most
of the following details are from the wonderful presentation of
the design and details of this gun recently published by the
British gun researchers Geoffrey Baker and Colin Currie (2002,
2006) and
the meticulous and precise physical research of Ernie Cowan and
Rick Keller, both combined with research and analysis by Robert Beeman.

The Girandoni system was adopted, in great secrecy, as the
Austrian military repeating air rifle (Hummelberger and Scharer,
1964/65). It has been recorded that the system was invented in
1779 or 1780, but deliveries of these guns to the Austrian army did not
begin until between 1787 and 1791. Hoff’s (1977) classic
reference on antique airguns and Hummelberger and Scharer
(1964/65) indicate that about 1500 Girandoni military airguns
were produced and that finally they were retired from service to
Olmütz in Bohemia
in 1815. Specimens with suggested, but unsupported, dates as
early as 1797, and similar versions, but
more advanced than the military models, are known from Joseph
Lowenz and Joseph Contriner in Vienna. Hoff indicates that other
Viennese gunmakers started making most of their copies of the
Girandoni system well after the Austrian Army had given up all
interest in such guns in 1815. Samuel Staudenmayer also began to
make modified, surely very expensive, versions of these guns in his London shop from
about 1806 to 1832.

Full length view of the Beeman
Girandoni repeating military air rifle, right side.
This is the actual specimen which most historians now believe is
the very airgun carried and used by Meriwether Lewis in the
Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803-06. There is an
extensive section
of this website devoted to a carefully detailed discussion of
these exciting discoveries! This actual specimen was
donated by Dr. and Mrs. Robert Beeman to the U.S. Army War
College's Heritage and Education Museum in Carlisle,
Pennsylvania on September 25, 2006. .

Figure 14. Receiver of a
replica Girandoni military repeating airgun- done to original
scale and specifications. Note that the air channel from the
rear of this unit to the threaded barrel socket on the front is
a curved tunnel cast into the upper part of the receiver; Cutting this channel takes a lot of careful hand work. Only the separate trigger guard parts,
and stock wood, to be added later, form the bottom half of the
receiver. (The striker latch assembly is black and the latch spring
is silver-colored. Striker latch guide screw has not yet been
added.)
Photo courtesy of G. Baker and C. Currie.

Original
drawings of the Girandoni military air rifle hand pump and
air reservoir. ((Hummelberger
and Scharer, 1964/65). The
extremely long thin pump at the left must have been clumsy
to carry in the field; but the photo of the Girandoni
support pack system in Hoff (1976) makes it clear that the
soldiers did carry them. The long pump has a snap-off foot
pedal/combination tool which could be held to the ground
with the user’s boots. Using his hands to firmly clasp the
air reservoir and move the cylinder up
and down while it is attached to the pump, air could be
pumped[4],
into the air cylinder. The head of the piston consisted of a
stack of seven, oiled leather washers.[5]
Note that the little cross sectional view at the top left
shows that the full diameter bore of the pump continued
right out to the end as the vent hole of the pump. This
reduces the lost volume at the end of the pump, which needs
to be kept to a minimum as air is compressed into this space
as well and just expands again when the pump is extended.[6]
These long, special high-pressure hand pumps could have been
used to completely charge the air reservoirs but may have
been mainly used to top off the pressure of partially pumped
and partially expended bottles which otherwise would present
a continuing problem to the individual soldiers A pump like
the shorter, larger diameter pump shown is similar to the
air pumps of most airguns and air canes. Such a pump could
have been used in the Girandoni shop and away from field
action, to produce high pressures to test the air
reservoirs. The small diameter of the air vent passage would
allow much higher pressures, with much greater effort, to be
put into the tanks for testing.

These most unusual long
pumps really reveal the genius of Girandoni. With almost no
dead space, these pumps would be extremely efficient - but
their large bore, uniquely continuing right to the discharge
end of the pump, would prevent the field soldier from
over-pumping the air rifle - thus causing his rifle to
improperly function or even to cause the air tank to
explode.
Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna. (Hummelberger and
Scharer, 1964)

Fig. 16A -
Original Girandoni repeating air rifle pouch with all
accessories. Courtesy of Giancarlo Melano, on behalf of the Museo Nationale Storico d'Artiglieria,
Turin, Italy.

Operation of the Girandoni airgun
system:

The Girandoni military air rifle is a butt reservoir air rifle
(a type known today as a Pre-Charged Pneumatic or PCP)
with a rifled bore. This conical iron air reservoir serves to
hold a supply of highly compressed air and to act as the rifle’s
buttstock. An external tubular magazine, along the right side of
the barrel was described as holding 20 lead balls which are
gravity fed to a transverse loading bar at the breech end of the
barrel. A flat spring running the length of the outside of the
magazine holds the loading bar to the left. When the gun is held
muzzle up and the left end of the loading bar is pushed by the
shooter, the bar moves to the right, and a cavity within the bar
receives a ball by gravity feed from the magazine. The ball is
moved into firing position behind the barrel as the magazine
spring is allowed to push the loading bar back to the left.

Until very recently we did not have an understanding of the
internal operation of a Girandoni air rifle. This lack of solid
information led to considerable confusion and error. Thanks
to the exhaustive work and study by Baker, Currie, Cowan,
Keller, and Beeman, we now have a clear picture of the internal
operation of this airgun. Presented here, for the first time,
are color diagrams, by Geoffrey Baker, of the functioning of the
ingenious lock and valve system of the Girandoni repeating air
rifle. (Baker
and Currie, 2002, 2006.)

Figure
17. Mechanism of Girandoni military repeating air rifle. AT
REST.
This, and all following drawings, are scale drawings by Geoffrey
Baker, based on two British specimens and cooperative
information and images of
the Beeman Girandoni air rifle from Robert Beeman and Ernie Cowan. Images
reproduced courtesy of Geoffrey Baker and Colin Currie.

Figure
18. Hammer pulled back to point where striker latch is about to
jump up and engage wedge on tumbler and sound the first click of
cocking.

Fig.19. Hammer
pulled back to point where sear engages half-cock notch on
tumbler. Second click. Hammer may be left in this “safe”
position. In this mode the trigger should not be able to cause
the hammer to fall and thus discharge the gun..

Figure 20.
Hammer pulled back to engage sear in full cock notch. Third
click. Gun is now ready to fire whenever trigger is pulled.

Figure 21.
Trigger is pulled, allowing hammer to start forward and have
tumbler wedge engage notch of striker latch. Wedge will push the
striker assembly against air valve and start to release
compressed air from reservoir

Figure 22.
Tumbler wedge is beginning to push on the striker assembly which
has started to force open the air valve in the reservoir.
Pressurized air (indicated by dark blue) is beginning to be
released from the air reservoir to force the ball up the barrel. The wedge
will be forced out of the striker latch notch as the tumbler’s
wedge rotates further, clockwise, to the rear.

Figure 23.
Wedge is now rising out of the latch notch. Air valve is fully
open. High pressure air is forcing the ball up the barrel. In
the next stage the wedge will move back and slide out of the
striker latch notch. The air pressure and the valve spring in
the reservoir will then force the air valve shut. The hammer
will then move forward and return to the rest position as shown
in the first operation figure above.

Fig. 24. Girandoni Military Repeating Air Rifle.
Close-up photos of the sear engaging the tumbler's cocking
notches in a normally operating specimen of the Girandoni
military air rifle in Europe. Upper image:
sear engages the "safety" position of the half-cock. The deep
lip of this notch prevents the sear from releasing if the
trigger is pulled. Lower image: Sear engaging the full-cock
position. Note that the tooth of the sear can easily be rotated
out of the full-cock notch, thus discharging the gun,
simply by pulling the trigger. (Again, note the much deeper,
ledged half-cock notch at the left.) Photos of Girandoni
military air rifle, serial number 1493, courtesy of Geoffrey
Baker.

Fig. 25. Detail
of first click when cocking. As the hammer turns the tumbler
counter-clockwise during cocking, the striker latch (orange) is
snapped up as the rear lip of the tumbler wedge passes the point
at the tip of the lower arrow. Firearms lack a striker latch,
therefore firearms do not produce a click at this point during
cocking. (This, and all following diagrams, by Geoffery Baker.)

Fig. 26. Detail
of second click when cocking. As the tumbler turns
counter-clockwise, the sear (yellow) snaps into the normally
deep half-cock notch at the tip of the lower arrow. The depth of
this notch normally prevents the sear from coming out of the
notch. This prevents the gun from discharging and serves as a
“safe” position. (Early production of the Girandoni air rifles
did not have a half-cock position.)

Fig. 27. Detail
of third click. As the tumbler rotates counter-clockwise, the
sear tip snaps into the full-cock notch at the point of the
arrow. The gun will now discharge when pulling the trigger
causes the sear to slip out of this shallow notch.

Figure
28. Exposed detail of hammer at forward rest position. Tumbler
rebound stop is resting flat on the mainspring. Note the roller
bearing on the back of the tumbler; a very advanced feature for
the period. Several parts removed from drawing, and lower part
of hammer made transparent, to aid clarity.

Figure
29. Exposed view of cocked hammer and mainspring. Tumbler is
pushing down mainspring into its cocked, tensed position.
Pulling the trigger allows the sear (yellow) to move out of the
full cock notch and release the potential force of the
mainspring to push against the rear section of tumbler and cause
it to rotate around the tumbler pivot pin.

After moving a ball into firing position, the gun is cocked by
pulling back on a hammer-like cocking lever. Moving the cocking
lever back causes an internal tumbler on the inner end of the
cocking lever (hammer) to force the mainspring down into a
compressed position. The cocking lever is held to the rear,
against the pressure of the mainspring, by the half cock or full
cock sear notches. When the trigger is pulled and the tumbler is
in the full cock position, the rearmost section of the trigger
forces the sear out of the full cock notch. The released force
of the mainspring forces the tumbler to rotate, bringing the tip
of a wedge shaped part on the tumbler into the notch of the
striker latch. The force of the mainspring is converted into a
straight line motion as the wedge pushes the striker latch and
thus the attached striker pin against the forward end of the air
reservoir’s valve. The tip of the striker pin forces open the
valve and releases a short blast of compressed air to force the
ball up and out of the barrel. The wedge then slips past the
striker latch and the air valve spring, aided by air pressure in
the reservoir, forces the air valve shut and returns
the
striker
assembly back into its resting position. Movement of the wedge
is reversed during re-cocking, depressing the striker latch and
allowing the wedge to pass without disturbing the striker
assembly and air valve. This all can be repeated so rapidly that
all 22 balls could be fired in less than a minute.

The Girandoni lock system is a quite sophisticated,
well-designed timed release design, The repeating mechanism
reveals the genius of its design by its efficiency and simplicity. Baker and
Currie (2002) make the very interesting observation that
there wasn’t another conventional military shoulder arm
comparable to the firepower of the Girandoni repeating air rifle
until the 1860 Spencer repeating firearm rifle of the American
Civil War. However, the Spencer had only a seven shot
magazine and had to be reloaded frequently by the rather clumsy
Blakeslee loader. The Girandoni military air rifle had a gravity
feed ball
magazine listed at 20 rounds. Each Girandoni-bearing military
shooter was issued two extra air cylinders and four very
efficient speedloader tubes, each containing twenty additional
balls. A fully loaded Girandoni kit had eighty more of those large
caliber balls ready for rapid action! In typical military use,
discharged, or partially discharged, air cylinders would be
exchanged for fresh full ones by runners going back and forth to
stationary wheel pumps or special two axle wagons designed to
carry up to 1000 pre-charged air cylinders, both positioned
behind the combat lines. Certainly the soldiers were not going
to fully pump up their three cylinders in regular use as this
would require about 4500 strokes with the hand pump! Even a
single cylinder could have taken a half hour of
hard pumping action! But the long slim pump, designed almost
without dead space would be useful in “topping off” high pressure in
partially expended cylinders.

The outstanding study of the history of the Girandoni Military
Repeater Air Rifle by Walter Hummelberger and Leo Scharer (1964)
reveals that the success of the Girandoni air rifle in warfare
has been a mixed matter. About 1780, the Austrian military
authorities, driven by Emperor Joseph’s personal involvement and
great enthusiasm for the Girandoni airguns, had secretly begun
the development of the so-called Austrian Military Model 1780
Repeating Air Rifle. By August 24, 1787, when Istanbul
declared war against Russia, some air rifles and pumps were the
only things that were ready for war. It was realized from the
beginning that it might not be practical to provide all the
compressed air for these guns from little individual hand pumps.
So Girandoni developed a wheeled pump to fill massed
concentrations of the removable air
bottles of the guns. Originally, it was planned to have one such
wheeled air machine for each five air rifles, plus the long hand pumps, but only two of the wheeled pumps actually were
produced[5].
Later, it was decided to issue a hand pump to only every other
soldier, underlining that the soldiers mainly were expected to
depend on pre-charged air bottles brought to them by runners.
Girandoni developed a two axle wheeled wagon, or transporter, to
safely carry up to 1000 of the pre-charged air bottles.

The
conical butt reservoir may seem primitive, but actually this
shape is extremely functional. One of the most annoying features
of many airguns with buttstock shaped air reservoirs in the
Beeman collection is the difficulty of getting the vertical axis
of the buttstock to line up with the vertical axis of the
receiver. A conical butt reservoir is round in cross section and
thus there is no alignment problem; one only need screw it
onto the receiver until it is snug. Thus the flat ring gasket
between the receiver and reservoir, made of cow horn, can be of
any reasonable thickness, regardless of tolerances, wear, oil
swelling, or humidity. The reservoir shape has little
ergonomic disadvantage as recoil is negligible.

The
steps in making a conical butt reservoir are shown in the
illustrations. Riveting the edges of the rolled edges is a
somewhat difficult operation, even today. However, the
real trick is brazing the rolled edges and the base cup.
At first, standard brazing technique was used, but this just
would not result in a leak proof reservoir. Finally, the
answer was found in information about 19th century steam tank
fabrication. The old, but very effective, technique was to
heat the riveted reservoir red hot and submerge it in molten
brazing metal! Learning this also answered something that
had puzzled us: why were the Girandoni reservoirs coated,
inside and out, with copper like metal? This inner coating also
provided a rust proofing against moisture resulting from the
expansion of compressed air. Making the reservoirs, in an
authentic manner, will be one of the major challenges to those
who would attempt to replicate these guns today.

Emperor Joseph personally was involved in the most detailed
matters of the Austrian military airgun project and their use in combat. He realized early that
the air guns must be “deployed correctly and maintained at the
best standard. It is necessary that the simple soldier, whose
intelligence is generally quite limited, is given this training
immediately upon receiving the gun – and that the training is
delivered in individual parts and not too much at once.” It was
determined that two corporals would have to be especially
trained to train and supervise the rank soldiers in the use of
the Girandoni airguns. Thus every 20 air-riflemen would be
supported by these two special corporals plus a specially
trained officer. In addition, there would be a specially trained
journeyman gunsmith for each 100 airguns and a supply of
replacement seals, air reservoirs, mainsprings, etc.. . Even with this intense
support, there was considerable malfunctioning and poor
maintenance of the airguns. Emperor Joseph was soon complaining
that “we appear to have a miserable bunch of riflemen, none of
who is suitable for service with the air rifles.” By end of
November 1788 the Emperor seems to have ordered that the air
rifles be taken away from the troops. The General Artillery
Director, the Duke of Colloredo himself, reported on July 21, 1789:
“Due to their construction, these guns were much more difficult
to use effectively than normal, as one had to handle them much
more cautiously and carefully. In addition, the soldiers using
them had to be supervised extremely carefully, as they were
unsure about the operation. The guns become inoperable after a
very short time – so much so that after awhile no more than one
third of them were still is in a usable state. We needed the
whole winter to repair and replace them.” After this it was
deemed wise to take back the airguns and issue them only to
select, specially trained Tyrolean sharpshooter units. The last
order given by the Emperor prior to his death was “to select the
most promising and skilful soldiers to use these guns.” Because
of extensive service work, and most importantly, the lack of
Emperor Joseph’s interest and involvement, the airguns still had
not been issued on December 16, 1792. However, the Tyrol Sharp
Shooter Corps indicated “that these weapons were really accurate
and effective” in the Turkish War and in 1790 against Prussia.
(Contrary to many accounts, they never saw service against any
of Napoleon's troops.)
The air rifles were later supplied only with the wheeled and
short hand pumps behind the lines –
the idea being that captured airguns would not be very useful
without the pumps!

Thus, the Girandoni air rifle in combat required persons highly
trained in its use and supported by wheeled air pumps and wagons
of pre-charged air bottles. These air guns easily were put of
service and needed constant and expert tending. A Girandoni air
rifle was predestined to give inexperienced users trouble and
charging with individual hand pumps was punishing to the user.
The dependability of the gun for lethal combat, under field
conditions, especially without the backup of dozens of other
airguns, was not high.

Because of the sophisticated nature of the flat mainspring and
the timed release mechanism, Baker and Currie (2002, 2006) suggest
that the Girandoni system is capable of much greater power than
air rifles of less advanced design. As of May 2003 they were
only willing to indicate that this system could project a lead
ball, of about one-half inch diameter, of about 210 grains to a
muzzle velocity of at least 500 fps for about 117 ft. lbs. of
muzzle energy. Colin Currie reported (personal communication May
18, 2003) that the Royal Armories of Leeds, England recently
charged the Heiberger .433 caliber air rifle, a formerly single
shot air rifle made about 1750 but converted to a 23 shot
Girandoni-style repeating system[6],
apparently in the early to mid-1800s, to about 800 lbs/sq. inch
and achieved a muzzle velocity of over 900 fps with balls of
120.4 grains for a muzzle energy of 217 ft. lbs. He reported
that 1500 strokes were needed to pump up the Heiberger‘s
buttstock reservoir to operating pressure after 20 shots had
been fired from one charging/loading.

Larry Hannusch (personal communication, Nov. 27, 2002) reported
that he has fired his own large bore Girandoni-system rifle (by
Lowentz) producing 200 ft lbs. muzzle energy at 750 psi
pressure, but that a muzzle energy of up to 150 ft. lbs. would
be more typical at conservative pressures. Many references to the
Girandoni air rifles mention lethal combat ranges of 125 to 150
yards and some extend that range considerably. Currie and Baker
also suggest that the Girandoni system could operate well at
pressures well above 1000 psi, perhaps to double of that, and
that they feel that the working pressure as supplied by special
pumps, and thus the potential power, of the original guns was
far higher than the figures normally quoted. Keller and Cowan
(personal communications 9 November 2004 and 14 February 2005)
think that the original air reservoir pressures topped at about
800 psi. The potential muzzle energy will be more accurately
determined from tests now underway with exact museum copies of
these guns. The power could be in the .38 Special area of modern
firearms, or even, as probably overstated by Fred Baer (1973) into the range
of the .45 ACP
cartridge, famous in pistols and submachine guns favored by
police, gangsters, and the military for several wars of the 20th
century. In any case, that heavy lead ball, fired from a
Girandoni-system airgun, could be a very lethal object! High air
reservoir pressures, translating into high power, could be an
advantage in battle where charged cylinders were being shunted
to and from the shooters. However, such pressures and volumes of
air per shot for such large bore airguns present such a fearful
appetite for compressed air that modern shooters of pre-charged
pneumatic rifles resort to SCUBA tanks and motorized pumps for
charging.

The power levels discussed above were very potent for the
period. However, foot pounds of energy do not tell the whole
story. Few hunters today would venture after big game with the
energy levels of the old big bore airguns or flintlocks, but
those big lead balls, about a half-inch in diameter, have a
special effect – as does a deadly arrow with “only” fifty foot
pounds of striking energy. One has to respect a gun capable of
flattening a huge lead ball against a distant steel plate,
especially when a typical Girandoni system gun could deliver
about 20 of those heavy missiles within the minute and another
80 rather suddenly! The simple great inertia and the large wound
channel of those big lead balls also makes them far more
dangerous than paper figures would suggest.

Side Note on the
Beeman
Girandoni military air rifle:
We purchased the illustrated specimen (the "Beeman Girandoni")
from the private collection of an American antique gun dealer
about 1975 without any provenance. The master gun reproduction
maker/historians, Ernie Cowan and Richard Keller, have made just
four ultra precise museum copies of this specimen. They are
extremely impressed with the excellent craftsmanship and
engineering - all parts are arsenal marked as matching and very
well fitted. The air reservoir bears a brazing metal coating - a
feature of the Girandoni produced airguns. Cowan and Keller,
directly studying the actual gun, indicates that not only are
they convinced that this was one of the military models of the
Girandoni military air rifles, made somewhere in the middle of
the actual Girandoni production (construction details, such as
the presence of a half cock, would place it about 1798), but
that it probably was an actual combat gun which was illegally
possessed outside of the military circle. This is evidenced by
the apparent removal of the serial number on what clearly is an
authentic Girandoni military model. Cowan indicates that the
receiver profile seems to be somewhat lower and thinner in the
locations where the serial number would be expected and the
front of the air reservoir end cap, where another serial number
would be expected, appears to have been filed shorter. (Close
examination shows that the front of this tapered brass piece
falls a little short of the diameter of the adjoining receiver.)
The true military status of this wonderful specimen, as revealed
by factory markings and exact measurements, was confirmed by the
British airgun historians, Currie and Baker. They have been
producing a series of books detailing the construction of famous
historical types of airguns. Their conclusion is that this airgun
is an authentic military production specimen diverted to the
civilian market. Baer (1973) indicates that Girandoni was
accused of diverting some specimens to the more profitable
civilian market. Some specifications: Unloaded weight = 9.2
lbs., loaded w/ 21 lead balls = 9.6 lbs. Weight of empty air
reservoir assembly = 3.0 lbs. The barrel is wrought iron.
Rifling is excellent, and relatively shallow (about 5 thousands
of an inch), commensurate with high efficiency in an airgun.).
The air valve consists of three stacked pieces of hard leather,
cut to a 60 degree slope to match the slope of the brass valve
seat. The front sight is brass or bronze. Finish of protected
iron surfaces is a dull dark, hot bluing.

MYTHS
ABOUT THE GIRANDONI AIRGUNS

There are several oft-repeated tales about Girandoni system
airguns which we now know to be fanciful. Some
historical accounts simply are not true or they may contain
comments that are not true.

First, One of the most common myths is that
Napoleon ordered the hanging of anyone in possession of an
airgun.
The late Arne Hoff, famed arms historian and curator of the
Royal Danish Arsenal, and others, have commented that this
story, told as the “eye witness” war experience of French
General Mortier, has now been quite thoroughly refuted (Baer,
1973). This story may have grown from the fact that many
towns, fearing these unfamiliar, terrifying guns - even without
any negative incidents, banned airguns. A death penalty was
common for many offenses, so it is possible that some airgunners
were put to death. One story relates that the city fathers had a
gunsmith, who knew how to make airguns, blinded!

Second, apparently there never was any incident of the air
rifles being used against Napoleon’s troops.

Third,
it is often related that these guns were silent. A number of
city, and other governmental decrees of the 1800s, made the guns
illegal, often largely on this basis. I can state from personal
firing of one of Cowan's fully-charged museum copy of the Girandoni military
air rifle that the discharge sound is quite audible, though by no
means as loud as a similar large bore flintlock firearm and
evidently much less loud than the report of many antique or
modern pre-charged pneumatic rifle..
However, the fact that the guns discharge without smoke or muzzle/pan
flash does make locating the position of someone firing such a
gun much more difficult. (Modern note: Powerful, modern,
silenced, 9mm PCP airguns are being used by U.S. Seals in Iraq
to snipe at insurgents. Firing an M-16 at dawn or dusk could
attract a lot of return fire to the flash point.)

A
GIRANDONI SYSTEM "HYBRID"

This
combination of a Girandoni system and an older Heiberger single
shot air rifle is especially interesting.

Upper images -RHS and top views of the Heiberger/Girandoni
Combination. Middle image: Barrel and repeater assembly removed
from Heiberger converted airgun, rear view. Note that the
decorative lines of the second rear sight, loading block
retainer bolt heads (grooved rectangular units on top of each
end of the loading block), plain finish, magazine spring,
magazine length, and magazine hatch handle are exact Girandoni
styling. Also note the brass bore liner which reduces the volume
of the transfer chamber (the round profile rear extension)
between the reservoir valve and the lead ball in firing
position. This bore liner would also jet the air towards
the ball and serve to reduce rust due to adiabatic condensation.
The round profile extension (steel?) behind the wrought iron
barrel/loading bar assembly surely is an addition specifically
made to fit it to
the Heiberger action - no such extensions are known in other
Girandoni-system airguns and the profile, length, and threads
exactly fit the Heiberger action. (This extension has rifling
continuous with the rifling in front of the loading block - this
would be the result of relining and rerifling the entire barrel
or of "freshening" the original rifling.) (BTW: Owner
David Swan, in England, assures me that the Girandoni-system
addition is NOT marked as to maker - the report in Airgun Hobby
magazine that it was marked with the Contriner name was an
editing error.) David uses 11mm (.433") lead balls, which
may be a loose fit in the bore.. The barrel is rifled with 12 grooves with a right hand twist,
with 1 turn in 25.5 inches, a much faster turn than found
in flintlock firearms of the period. The rifling twist of this
arm is a little faster than the 26.25 inch twist of the original
Girandoni military air rifle barrels, evidently an adaptation to
the higher velocity of the slightly smaller projectile of this
gun. The ID of the magazine tube is 11.9mm (0.470") and the
loading block ball recess is 12.1 mm (0.476") in diameter;
measurements consistent with these parts having been acquired
from a standard 11.75 mm Girandoni military air rifle..

Lower picture: Lead balls, .11 mm (433") caliber, before and after
being fired at a steel plate from the converted Heiberger
repeating air rifle in 2002. Note lack of any rifling
marks.

Fig. 32. Single Shot Air Rifle by C. Heiberger of Vienna,
made ca. 1750-1760, converted to Girandoni system repeater
action, apparently using the barrel, magazine, and action from a
Girandoni-system air rifle. Conversion ca. 1815-40. This conversion could have been
rather easily accomplished by simply adding a short barrel
extension to a barrel
assembly, with attached loading block, magazine tube, and
even sights, from a disabled Girandoni-system airgun into the
Heiberger receiver. Note that the Heiberger conversion has two
rear sights: an original one on the receiver and a Girandoni
style one which came with the added barrel/repeater
assembly (that forward Girandoni sight is too low to be seen by
the shooter
over the original rear sight!). This 23 shot repeater has
a standard V-shaped internal mainspring. The nature and size of
the external cocking lever ("hammer") indicates that the
mainspring was very powerful. The round section buttstock air
reservoir may also be a later Girandoni-system item. Fires
very loudly and flattens its
discharged balls very impressively against a distant steel
plate. The high sound may be a side effect of loose ball fit.

Probably a "one-off" item, of considerable power and great
firepower, without decoration but in excellent condition. While
understandably lacking many design features of the
Girandoni military repeater, it functions well and would have
been a fearsome weapon. The Heiberger does have at least a
couple of superior features not found in the later regular
Girandoni air rifle design: an air bypass lever (on the
left lock plate) and a far stronger fused two-part receiver body
of heavy cast bronze both top and bottom. This particular
gun may be the only such conversion ever made; no other
such specimens are known. No case or pump are known for this
gun. Of course, because it was built as a hunting arm, rather
than as a military arm, no speed loaders ("spare magazines") are
known. The workmanship of the conversion is of a considerably
lower quality than the original Heiberger gun. It does not
appear to have been done by a highly skilled gunsmith. This
Heiberger/Girandoni-system conversion gun had been stored as No.
425 in the Salm-Reifferscheid Armory, Schloss Dyck (Dyck Castle, near Düsseldorf, Germany) until 1992
and apparently has never left Europe.
Courtesy David Swan
collection, photos by David Swan.

Notice,
even on the single shot guns, the flask shaped air reservoirs
and the diagnostic "little notch" which aligns the lock
plate in the receiver body. Research is only beginning on these
specimens. Additional information, input, and specimens are all
much needed and solicited for this research. This photo series
is only intended to give a general impression of some of the
variety of these guns.

Fig. 37.
Girandoni-system repeating air rifle by Joseph Contriner in
Vienna, ca. 1810. Terrible image of the one of the finest
Girandoni-system air guns known. Photo is copied from image of
this specimen on pg. 93 of Wolff (1958) because gun is being
professionally restored by Ernest Cowan and not available for photos. Gold
plated, silver inlaid, deeply engraved- perhaps even more
elegant than the Girandoni air pistol shown above. Magazine
capacity of about 16 balls (est.).
Courtesy of Beeman Collection.

Made in the 1940s during WW2,
this gun doesn't look like a Girandoni, but examination shows
that it clearly was built by someone familiar with the Girandoni
repeating airgun system. Purchased in Europe, the story is that
this gun was built somewhere in occupied Europe by a partisan bicycle maker during the Nazi occupation
in WW2 . (Originally we suspected that the maker was in Austria
but an Austrian friend pointed out that there really wasn't any
resistance movement in Austria - most Austrians still considered
Germany and Austria as a single unit, as it had been in the
past, and actually welcomed the Nazi troops when they occupied
the country, virtually without force.) The repeating magazine is
spring fed and on the left side of the barrel, for the
convenient use of a right handed shooter. The gun was
charged with the accompanying bicycle type pump. Smoothbore, as
would be expected, but firing a 11 3/4 mm lead ball (.464"
caliber) (the very same caliber as the original Girandoni
Austrian military repeating air rifles!), this would have been a
fearsome weapon against sentries, drivers, military leaders,
etc. at ranges up to perhaps 100 yards. To a freedom fighter,
the lower discharge sound and the lack of flash or smoke would
have been huge values. And it did not need powder, primers, or
bullets - only easily cast lead or soft-metal balls! The builder
surely drew his inspiration from a museum, or even just a book, which displayed a
Girandoni system airgun. The excellent quality reflects the
experience of a perfectionist bicycle maker with considerable
time on his hands - consistent with such a craftsman in an
occupied area.

Note that this gun has a spring
fed magazine, rather than the gravity fed magazine of the
original Girandoni military air rifle. While a gravity feed
mechanism might be simpler, and even more dependable, the spring
fed magazine has great advantages for the purposes of this gun.
It is more suited for operation from a vehicle or firing slot
where it would be impractical to tip up the rifle for loading
and it allows firing with minimal motion at the firing point -
very important to a sniper.

Why would a modern sniper want a
functional version of an ancient airgun when automatic weapons
were as close as the first German soldier that could be waylaid?
The answer dramatically comes from the above notes and the fact
that an
American maker is now doing a small, but excellent, business
supplying coalition troops in the near East with high power 9mm
repeating PCP air rifles, complete with silencers and
nightsights. Unlike a firearm, such a weapon, without sound,
flash, or smoke, does not attract return fire - esp. in reduced
light situations - the deadly projectile just seems to come from
no-where!

Fig. 42. Austrian air rifle built for an emperor? A truly
elegant double barreled rifle - left barrel is a percussion,
muzzle-loading firearm. The right barrel is a breech loading,
butt-reservoir air rifle - about .40 caliber - Pushing
forward on a lever
in the trigger guard causes an invisible breech block to rise up
out of the top of the receiver for easy, fast loading. Deeply
inlaid gold letters include numerals on the left side let you set a four step power
selection lever for bunnies to bear! Extremely deep
engraving, gold inlays, elegant calf-skin covered butt
reservoir- ca. 1850-60? Photo by R. Valentine Atkinson. Courtesy of Beeman Collection.

What may be the pinnacle of
evolutionary development of the Austrian Girandoni system is
shown in the accompanying picture of a 19th century Austrian
side-by-side double-barrel air/percussion combination. The
key feature of the genius of the Girandoni system, a sliding
breech block with a ball socket, has here evolved into a
concealed, vertically moving breech block with a similar ball
socket. The firepower of the long magazine has been replaced
with the combination of firepower and dependability of a
double-barrel gun with two completely different power sources.
The round-bottom, conical flask air reservoir has evolved into a
leather covered air container shaped like a modern long arm
buttstock.

Do Lukens Air Rifles
show Girandoni Styling ?

I
have commented in the Lukens airgun paper on this website, that, as previously discussed between myself and the
late Henry
Stewart, that the “shape and style” of the Lukens airgun
receivers seemed to be similar to the receivers on
Girandoni-style Austrian butt reservoir air rifles in the Beeman
collection. Thus, I was obliged to
again compare the receivers of Girandoni style repeating airguns
with those of Lukens single shot air rifles. Although there is
superficial external similarity due to being rounded, as is
common, and having the air reservoir connection, barrel base,
and lock in similar locations, as would be dictated by function,
the receivers, and also the air reservoirs, of the two lines of
airguns are very different. Internally, and in all the lock
areas, the Girandoni airguns and the Lukens airguns are
completely different. The Lukens and Girandoni
receivers are vastly different. The Girandoni receiver basically
is just a single brass top piece, cast from top to bottom, with the lower area
of the receiver being just the trigger guard and an extension of
the wooden stock. A simple, rather diagnostic, notch along the lower, right
edge of the brass casting holds the rear tip of the lock
plate,
simplifying assembly.
The Lukens/Kunz air rifles have a two receiver piece brass receiver, cast from side to side and brazed along
the center line - the solid metal receiver completely enclosing the
central area of the gun, top and bottom. In the Lukens the air
transfer tube is brazed into place when the two side shells are
joined.
This is detailed in the
paper on the Lukens gun
itself.
In the Girandoni the air transfer channel is a tunnel
drilled and filed or cast in place.

When
Stewart, and later I, made the remark about similarity of
Girandoni and Lukens styling we were not aware of the complete
contrast of the mechanisms and structure. We were only referring
to superficial cosmetic appearance and the presence of a butt
reservoir. Similar cosmetic styling, but certainly not
structure, of the receiver was found at least as far back
as a single shot air rifle by C. Heiberger, a Luftbüchsenmacher
(airgun maker) of Vienna, about 1750. And while the Lukens butt
reservoir is not very much like the Girandoni reservoir, it is similar to butt
reservoirs found on external lock air rifles that go back two
centuries.

Conclusion:
There appears to be not the slightest indication that the style
or design of either gun was influenced by the style or design of
the other. The styling of each can be traced as separate back to
at least the mid-1700s.

We VERY MUCH welcome
information on other Girandoni system airguns and are always on
the market to buy additional specimens for inclusion in our
upcoming book which finally will tie the existing specimens
together into a permanent legacy for this gun-making genius - a
collection which is destined to be maintained as a unit in an
appropriate international arms museum - rather than being sold
and thus scattered into obscurity over the globe.

Baer, Fred.
1973. Napoleon Was Not Afraid of It In: Arms
and Armor Annual, Ed. By Robert Held, Digest Books, Northfield, Illinois.

Baker,
Geoffrey and Colin Currie, 2002. The Construction and
Operation of the Air Gun. Vol. 1. The Austrian Army Repeating
Air Rifle. 64 pp.
www.gunbooks.co.uk. This book, one of the most important
works ever on the Girandoni air rifle, primarily is detailed
drawings of the gun and its parts. It was revised and corrected to include new work by Baker, Currie, Cowan,
Keller, and Beeman as a second edition of
102 pages
published in 2006. The
second edition of this stellar
book is absolutely essential to anyone interested in the
Girandoni airguns. A similar book detailing the construction of
aircanes has also been produced by this industrious and exacting
pair.)

[1]
“Rapping” is the quick snapping of the cylinder down
against the pump to top off the air that can be entered
by regular pumping. Rapping in air vs. pushing it in can
be compared to hammering in a nail vs. pushing it in
with a hammer. For many years I have been "rapping"
higher pressures into Yewha and other pneumatic guns
than could have been predicted on the basis of my
tenth-of-a-ton weight. (Both Barnes and Gaylord, have
since reported -via personal communication of October 20, 1999
- that such "rapping" can indeed produce air storage
pressures in some airguns greater than would be predicted from the body
weight of the shooter. The weight of the shooter may be
almost irrelevant in determining the air pressure that
he can produce.). Recent tests by Beeman, Cowan, and
Currie indicate that such "rapping" is not possible with
the Girandoni airguns.

[2] An
intriguing feature of these pumps is their ingenious
design: the upper end of the pump shaft is square in
cross section. After pushing the pump head out for
cleaning and oiling the seals would be pulled just into
the pump’s bore. Then the square shaft passing through a
square guide cap would hold the shaft still as the
threaded pump seal nut was turned to expand the seals,
thus providing perfect fit and tightness.

[3]
Geoffrey Baker (personal communication, 10 November
2004) commented: The shorter larger diameter pump would
not reach as high a pressure as the longer thinner one.
The air vent has lost volume which is not much of a
problem at lower pressures .For
high pressure it is essential to have as little lost or
“dead” volume as possible.
Girandoni was a genius.
He
very cleverly got around this problem by continuing the
pump tube right up to the end. Air cane pumps are
similar to the shorter one and the air vent is
relatively large. Modern pumps like the Slim Jim variety
used by the now defunct Brocock Company had a tiny air
vent but they are designed to pump to much higher
pressures than the aircane ones. (The short. thick
pump is the type known from most specimens of antique
airguns.)

[5]
Girandoni reported that the wheeled pumps actually were
a bit slower than the long hand pumps, but even though
the filling of an air bottle would require the same
amount of energy input from a wheeled pump as from a
hand pump, the wheeled pump must have been enormously
easier to use. It is staggering to think of the amount
of manpower that would have necessary to keep those
transporter wagons full of hundreds of fully charged air
bottles, plus shunting them to the shooters. This alone
could have been a key reason for the decline of the
airgun as a regular military weapon.

[6]
Almost surely, only one such conversion has ever been
made. The Heiberger/Girandoni conversion gun had been
stored in Schloss Dyck (Dyck Castle, near Düsseldorf,
Germany) until 1992
and apparently has never left Europe. There is no
indication that a Heiberger airgun, listed by Wolff
(1958) as being in the Mack collection in America in
1958, ever was anything but an original single shot
airgun. It is the only Heiberger known by the author to
have been in the Americas.

[1]
Dr. Robert Beeman is a Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation
member, Professor Emeritus at San Francisco State University,
founder of Beeman Precision Airguns, publisher of Airgun
Journal and Airgun News, author of many airgun
publications and bulletins, airgun designer, airgunsmith, senior author of
the Blue Book of Airguns series, airgun expert witness, airgun consultant,
and airgun collector and historian.